Application of Knowledge-Based Engineering to Gear Train Design and Manufacturing

By applying Knowledge-based Engineering (KBE) technology, the Gear Train design process at AlliedSignal Engines has realized an overall productivity improvement of 2:1. The traditional process requiring over 800 man-hours in 15 calendar weeks, has been reduced to 400 man-hours in 8 calendar weeks. With the KBE application, “Users” manipulate “objects” that encapsulate Design, Analysis, and Manufacturing rules and processes from company domain experts. The interaction and resolution of multiple domain rules within the application to achieve top-level constraints yields a design instance satisfying Engineering and Manufacturing requirements.

The application has been used successfully to respond to proposals and evaluate gear train configurations without requiring large teams and all the associated hand-offs, while still allowing best practices from multiple disciplines to be applied consistently.